[API Proposal]: Make IsApplePlatform public

Background and motivation

When people want check if current application is running on Apple platforms, like macOS, iOS, watchOS, tvOS, they probably need to call OperatingSystem.IsMacOS() and OperatingSystem.IsIOS(), etc.

Perhaps we should provide a public method IsApplePlatform() .

We already have such internal method:

runtime/src/libraries/System.Private.CoreLib/src/System/OperatingSystem.cs

Lines 245 to 250 in 8a9d492

    
                   internal static bool IsApplePlatform() => 
        
           #if TARGET_OSX || TARGET_MACCATALYST || TARGET_IOS || TARGET_TVOS 
        
                       true; 
        
           #else 
        
                       false; 
        
           #endif

API Proposal

        [NonVersionable]
        public static bool IsApplePlatform() =>
#if TARGET_OSX || TARGET_MACCATALYST || TARGET_IOS || TARGET_TVOS || TARGET_WATCHOS
            true;
#else
            false;
#endif

API Usage

if (OperatingSystem.IsApplePlatform()) 
{
     Console.WriteLine("Hello World from Cupertino, California");
}

Alternative Designs

No response

Risks

No response

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This could be useful to select the correct library extension (i.e. *.dylib) in a DllImportResolver callback. See for example commit kleisauke/net-vips@0fa851c.

@lewing

@lewing / @steveisok -- What are your thoughts on this? Any risk you can see in exposing this as a public property?

@lewing / @steveisok -- What are your thoughts on this? Any risk you can see in exposing this as a public property?

I don't see much risk. It's a conveinence when dealing with all the apple configurations.

Video

Looks good as proposed

namespace System;

public partial class OperatingSystem
{
    public static bool IsApplePlatform();
}

Expose `IsApplePlatforms` publicly in OperatingSystem

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[API Proposal]: Make IsApplePlatform public #113262

Background and motivation

API Proposal

API Usage

Alternative Designs

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	internal static bool IsApplePlatform() =>
	#if TARGET_OSX \|\| TARGET_MACCATALYST \|\| TARGET_IOS \|\| TARGET_TVOS
	true;
	#else
	false;
	#endif

[API Proposal]: Make IsApplePlatform public #113262

Description

Background and motivation

API Proposal

API Usage

Alternative Designs

Risks

Activity

dotnet-policy-service commented on Mar 7, 2025

kleisauke commented on Mar 25, 2025

jeffhandley commented on Jul 26, 2025

steveisok commented on Jul 26, 2025

bartonjs commented on Sep 8, 2026

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